Drew Struzan interview - Page 2 of 3 THE NOVEL COVERS
ES: Let's talk a bit about the Star Wars novel covers. How were you approached about doing these covers? How many of them are you contracted for?
DS: (Laughing) No contract. It's just one job at a time. Once again, it's probably not as romantic as you would like to think it is, you know? What I do is a job, and that's pretty much how it's done. I'm a freelance artist. I don't work for a company, it's just whoever calls me up and says "will you do a painting for me?" and we agree on what the job is and when it gets done and how much I get paid. That's how I get my work. Bantam had a series of books they were doing and they needed an artist to paint them. What's special about this situation is that it was George Lucas who recommended that I do them, so it came from George's mouth and George's opinion that I do the books. Bantam called me and said "Would you like to do them? You were recommended by George." So I said "Of course I would like to do them!" (laughing). Who wouldn't? So I did one, and they liked it, and they called up again a couple months later and said "Would you like to do another one?" and I said "yes." It's just become a very steady job, but there's no contract involved. It's just one job after another. As long as I perform, and as long as the books perform, I'll keep getting work. When I start doing a lousy job, they'll give them to somebody better than me (laughing). So, that's about how it goes. It's kind of a "hand-'em-out" lifestyle, you know?
ES: Are you currently working on any Star Wars covers?
DS: I'm sitting here drawing one right now, yes. It's one of the new "Han Solo" series. I don't know if the first book is out yet, but this is the second one in the trilogy. It's Han Solo before Star Wars, when he was a young man.
ES:
One of your most amazing covers is the "Crystal Star". The swirling mass of
shimmering stars is a great effect; how did you achieve this?
DS: Ummm, I don't recall (laughing). It's just a technique, I suppose. It's more of an idea, that's what I wanted. It's a matter of painting it to look that way, there's nothing special about it. I mean, I don't do like other people and get out big electrodes or something. I just paint, and do it in a very classical manner. I start with white paper, get out a bunch of pencils, and paint. I push them around until a picture comes out of it. It basically comes out of an idea more than out of the pencils.
ES: About the cover concepts: are these left entirely up to your imagination? Do you receive a story synopsis that helps you along?
DS: Well, I always get a synopsis so I can basically know what is different about this novel than every other novel, if there's something special about it. Usually the parameters are the same, I always have to include the three characters Han, Leia, and Luke. If you notice, they're on every cover. Sometimes there is somebody in this that you haven't seen before, like a new character or a new spaceship, or a situation that is a little different, and often it's more of an emotional or mental storyline than it really is a new character carrying the piece. So, it's usually just a compositional thing and that's usually left up to me. They tell me what has to be included, and then how I design it is my business.
I'll do a drawing which goes to Bantam, and then it goes to Lucasfilm, and they all approve it, then I just paint it. So, it's sort of my idea but they always have to have certain elements, and they always have to have the Star Wars look. You know, I can't do something that is completely out of order for the Star Wars "feeling" or that wouldn't be appropriate.
It's like when I do the "Indiana Jones" covers; the reason I got to do those covers was because I did the movie posters, and they wanted the books to look authentic, so they got the same artist to do the same look... (as) on the movie posters. That way, it looks like: "Oh, this is the real Indiana Jones, it's not a fake," you know? And Star Wars is kind of the same thing.
ES: Have you ever had a concept rejected, or have you had to make any major changes that conflicted with your creative vision?
DS: Rarely, but sometimes it happens. They just want something different, or the author, sometimes they have say and they want to see something different. The only time it gets difficult is when they've created a new character that really doesn't exist. It's just a verbal character from the books, and then you have to design a character. It's not that it's hard to design one; it's hard to make people believe that this is a good one (laughing). Because when they design them for the movies, people work on them for months and they design them, and they go through all these different people and approval stages.
ES: Right, such as Prince Isolder from Courtship Of Princess Leia or Callista from Children of the Jedi.
DS: Yeah, all that stuff.
ES: Did you base these characters on anybody you knew?
DS: Yeah, (laughing). Well, that one (Isolder) wasn't that difficult. I just kind of did it, and they didn't say anything. But like the first one on this Han Solo trilogy, there was this nine-foot cat-like looking thing that just came out of the mind of the author (Ann Crispin). So, in painting him, while he wasn't difficult, I had to paint to somebody's mental idea, nobody really had a picture of what he looked like. I had to paint him a couple of times until he had the emotional impact the author wanted. In the end she was real happy; she wanted a copy of the painting. It's much more difficult when you're painting to an image in somebody's mind and they have nothing to show you. So when those cases arrive it makes it a little more difficult, but it's never bad. There's no intrigue involved, (laughing) you just do it until they're happy.